Grizzlies aim to change their NBA draft lottery luck

Kentucky coach John Calipari believes that the proposed rule change to have basketball players spend spend two years in college before declaring for the NBA draft will be beneficial for his program.
Autumn Allison/USA TODAY NETWORK-Tennessee

Memphis Grizzlies draft picks, from left, Sam Young, Hasheem Thabeet and DeMarre Carroll hold up their new team jerseys at a press conference June 26, 2009.(Photo: AP file photo)

The Grizzlies had the second-worst record in the league this past season. That means they have a 19.9 percent chance of getting the first pick, an 18.8 percent chance of getting the second pick, a 17.1 percent chance of getting the third pick, a 31.9 percent chance of getting the fourth pick, and a 12.3 percent chance of getting the fifth pick.

Or, to put it another way, the Grizzlies have a 55.8 percent chance of getting a top three pick in a draft that has three players — DeAndre Ayton, Luka Doncic and Marvin Bagley — who seem ready to step in and make an immediate difference.

That’s the way it has gone for this franchise on lottery night. Only draft night has been worse.

This is the Grizzlies' eighth year in the lottery since the team moved to Memphis. One year (2010), the Grizzlies' pick remained the same. Four years, the Grizzlies slid down in the draft order on lottery night. But the two years the Grizzlies moved up may have been the most painful of all.

Small wonder Heisley and West grew to loathe the lottery as the years went on.

CLOSE

Grizzlies general manager Chris Wallace talks about where he sees the team going in the future.
Ronald Tillery/The Commercial Appeal

Here’s West before his first Grizzlies lottery in 2001: “This is very exciting for me. I’m looking forward to it.”

Here’s West after the Grizzlies' lottery in 2007: “It’s grossly unfair to the team.”

Mind you, a couple of those years turned out OK, despite the slide. The Grizzlies got Shane Battier with the sixth pick in 2001 and Mike Conley with the fourth pick in 2007. And they got Kevin Love with the fifth pick in 2008, which would have been fabulous if they hadn’t immediately sent him to Minnesota for the third pick, O.J. Mayo.

So the real misery came the two times the Grizzlies moved up in the draft. And if you can’t bear to relive that misery, I’ll understand if you stop reading now.

In 2003, the Grizzlies had the sixth-worst record in the league. But because of a prior, idiotic trade for Otis Thorpe, they owed their pick to Detroit unless it was the No. 1 pick in the draft.

The Grizzlies tried to summon all sorts of positive mojo. This was the LeBron James draft. So West even agreed to a pre-lottery meeting with Maynard, Silky Sullivan’s allegedly lucky goat.

“They don’t have this in California,” said Karen West, Jerry’s wife, as she watched the meeting unfold. “I’m not even sure they have goats.”

Sure enough, the Grizzlies were one of the last two teams alive for the final pick. TV broke for a commercial to heighten the suspense. When the broadcast resumed, Cleveland emerged with the No. 1 pick and the Grizzlies emerged with zip.

Said West, on the subject of Maynard's future: "Tomorrow, we're planning a sacrifice."

The only other time the Grizzlies moved up in the order was the infamous draft of 2009. The Grizzlies jumped from sixth to second, which gave them the chance to make the mistake of taking Thabeet.

Who would the Grizzlies have likely picked if they had remained at No. 6 in that draft?

A skinny kid by the name of Steph Curry, who wound up going No. 7 to Golden State. Read it and weep.

So do not expect good things from this lottery night. Hope for a top-three pick, but brace yourself for No. 4 or No. 5. And if it comes to that, console yourself with a few stories of how things can work out anyway.

The Grizzlies' first lottery in Memphis was 2001. That was the year the Grizzlies fell from No. 4 to No. 6 and wound up with Battier. Not bad, right? But in the meantime, the Atlanta Hawks jumped from No. 5 to No. 3 in the lottery. That set up the Grizzlies' trade with the Hawks for Pau Gasol, which led to three playoff appearances by Pau in Memphis and, ultimately, seven more by brother Marc.

Or consider that disastrous lottery of 2009, when the Grizzlies got the No. 2 pick and Thabeet. The Clippers won the lottery that year, which gave them the right to draft Blake Griffin, which led my colleague Ron Tillery to write the following in his report on lottery night: “Winning the lottery could pose the Clippers with a quandary. They already have a productive power forward, Zach Randolph, whose hefty contract won’t be easy to trade.”

I wonder where that Randolph guy wound up?

Or, finally, reflect all the way back to the lottery of 1997, when the Grizzlies were still in Vancouver. The Grizzlies had the worst record in the league that year. But by NBA rule, those early Grizzlies were not permitted to actually get the No. 1 pick and they slid all the way to No. 4 on lottery night, where they wound up picking point guard Antonio Daniels.

If the Grizzlies had remained at No. 1, they would have picked a power forward named Tim Duncan and almost certainly would have remained in Canada.